Sexuality in its Many Shades: The Intersection of Racism and Sexism - Assignment Example

Sexuality in its many shades: the intersection of Racism and Sexism Race and gender are important identities for women of color. The intersection of race and gender can have important ramifications for individual identity and self-identification while racism and sexism can also have repercussions in a variety of social spheres. As a future academic counselor with an interest in gender and sexuality, I undertook three interviews for this analysis: one of a bisexual Asian woman; the second interview was with a self-identified lesbian of African-American descent; the third interview took place with two-spirited transgendered female of Caribbean/Native American ancestry. Through these interviews I was given a unique vantage point with which to understand the intersection of race and gender. The following is an analysis of the many shades of sexuality through work with three individual who are visible minorities, as well as sexual minorities, in America today. American society has a shameful legacy of slavery and is a country stratified by race, gender and class. For some, like renowned African American author, scholar and social activist, bell hooks, the United States is a country with a strong tradition of institutionalized racism which permeates all aspects of modern America society (see hooks’ Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, 1981). For many in America, racism is an ever-present aspect of the social condition and is built upon a rigid social code, a white/black binary which has its roots in early American settlement and the shameful tradition of slavery in the New World. In addition to the white/black binary, another binary exists. The sexual binary, which is heavily engrained in our society and has been responsible for persistent inequality between the sexes as well as the historical division of labor, coexists alongside the racial binary in modern American society. This sexual binary has also led to a heterosexual/homosexual duality which mimics the racial binary in America. As Ellen Goodman’s Boston Globe article (2009) on the promotion of abstinence, a culture of heterosexuality dominates and the issues of LGBTQs are often ignored. In a comprehensive scholarly studied on the federal abstinence programs in America, Dr. Rosenbaum finds the same ignorance of different sexualities and the promotion of compulsive heterosexuality through these abstinence programs (2008). Seeking to address the sexual and racial binaries in America today, I asked the following questions: 1) When the racial binary meets the sexual binary and the two meet, what are the implications? 2) Why is it important to analyze race and gender together and not separately? 3) What is the impact of racism, sexism and compulsory heterosexuality on the lives of Americans today? 4) What proposals can be put forth to change social attitudes towards women of color, particularly in the academic setting? Racial and Sexual Binaries Renowned scholar Judith Butler famously remarked that "to become a lesbian is an act, a leave-taking of heterosexuality," (2002) and for many lesbians in America this sentiment rings true. Unlike sexuality for most people, race is not an act and cannot be hidden. Rather it is something which is overt and is lived each and every day by millions of people around this country. The binary logic of race is inherently hierarchical and in modern American society, white people are perceived of as being superior compared to people of color, according to this subjective racial hierarchy. This hierarchy has important ramifications in the social, cultural, economic and political realms as access to social services, jobs, and political office are presumably easier for white Americans rather than black Americans. Similarly, the binary logic of sex and gender also represents a social hierarchy and postulates that men are superior to women, and that homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals, with results in the social, cultural, economic and political realms (Wellman 148-165). The intersection of race and gender are very important for women of color who must deal with both the challenges of sexism and racism in modern American society. While race is a social construct, not a scientific one, sex has a biological basis and is usually determined at birth. Race and gender intersect with one another all the time in modern society, particularly when people of color face discrimination on account of both their gender as well as their racial background. This dual form of discrimination is particularly insidious since it further reinforces stereotypes based upon race and sex. Renowned, yet controversial, cultural theorist bell hooks discusses the intersection of patriarchy (discrimination based upon sex and gender) and racism and white supremacy (discrimination based upon the artificial constructions of race). According to bell hooks, we are socialized to think about race and gender through a hierarchical lens and accepted these hierarchies unflinchingly without questioning them. As Emma Renold so eloquently describes in her Gender and Education article, issues of sexuality are treated in the same vein and she demonstrates how "girls and boys are subject to the pressures of compulsory heterosexuality" at a very early age. (2000). The Effects of Racism, Sexism and Compulsory Heterosexuality What are the effects of racism, sexism and compulsory heterosexuality on the lives of people today? In American society there is a definite health disparity in the country as non-whites report a lower level of overall health and access to healthcare. Poverty is also a feature of the social condition of many women of color in the United States today. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine undertook a substantial quantitative analysis of the infant mortality rates between black and white infants and found that a disparity in this important social indicator does in fact exist. Accordingly, this respected journal found that the black-white infant mortality ratio has persisted for decades and has even increased in recent times. In 1960, the black-white infant mortality ratio stood a 2.0, but twenty years later this figure had risen to 2.4. In fact, black babies in America have a 300% greater likelihood of being born with a low birthrate relative to their white counterparts. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention found a variety of socio-economic causes for the phenomenon of low birth weight, including poverty, poor nutrition, a lack of knowledge about pregnancy and the challenges associated with it, and access to proper medical facilities. The disparity in black-white successful birth ratios in America thus can be attributed to social forces and socio-economic differences amongst black and white Americans (Carmichal and Iyasu 220-277; Kogan 614) Sexism and compulsory heterosexuality are other scourges on American society which affects the overall quality of life for people today. Sexism is the belief that one sex is superior to the other and generally implies ideas about superiority and inferiority between sex and gender. While some societies are characterized as being matriarchal, much of Western society is patriarchal and the United States in no exception. The patriarchal nature of American society is explained by a variety of social and historical factors which are beyond the scope of this assignment. Nonetheless, while women in American have made incredible gains in the social, economic, cultural and political spheres over the past century, sexism remains a prevalent aspect of our society. Sexism can be overt, latent or suppressed but it exists and has a variety of social repercussions. Accordingly, women in American earn less than their male counterparts and the employment mobility of women is often hindered by preconceived ideas about sexuality and the economic roles that women can play in the modern world. Anthropologists and cultural theorists have written for years about a “pink ghetto”, in which women are regulated to a sector of the labour market which is poorly remunerated and oftentimes unrewarding. Ideas about “women’s work” force women into so called female-ghettos in which women predominate and their upward social mobility is hindered by preconceived notions of what women can (and should) do. Accordingly, there is also an invisible “glass ceiling” which limits the future job prospects of women in American society and their future earning power. Looking at the medical sector again, a profession formerly limited to men, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that as in “young male physicians earned 41% more per year than young female physicians” (Baker, 960). Is this the result sexism, either latent or overt? Although it is difficult to say, it is important to remember that these disparities do in fact exist. In his account of the experiences of young gay men and women, Smith found that "the ideology of fag is embedded in the social organization of heterosexuality" and this overarching attribute of American society has a variety of important ramifications on the lives of LGBTQ people today. Social Attitudes and Attitudinal Change As an academic counselor, I have a unique role to play in combating the challenges of sexism, racism and compulsory heterosexuality. Accordingly, women who are sexual minorities in American society today have to combat all three of these issues each and every day. Attitudes about women as well as about people of colour continue to impact the lives of women of colour. Social beliefs and values often misrepresent women of color as being uneducated, on welfare or poor working members of society. This is often in contradiction to the hard-working and responsible black mothers, sisters and caregivers in America today. Accordingly black women are disproportionately represented in underappreciated and under compensated employment categories like homecare worker or caregiver. These stereotypes do more to misrepresent the actual lives of women of color than to actually qualify their experiences. While it is true that the opportunities for women of color have changed dramatically since 1900, attitudinal barriers remain. Social barriers are the product of people’s attitudes and these ideas about race and gender remain the most important impediments to the full inclusion of women of color in the wider society. Social programs which can work towards the further inclusion of women of color and against their oppression include Black History month courses in school, generous maternity leave programs for mothers and educational grants aimed at increasingly the post-secondary participation rates of young women of color (Baker 960-963). As Rob Stein so eloquently pointed out, concurring with Goodman and Rosenbaum, premarital abstinence pledges have been proven to be ineffective while at the same time promoting a culture of compulsory heterosexuality (2008). While sex is deemed to be “bad”, heterosexual relations are deemed by these programs to be the only sexuality recognized. This excludes millions and is hardly representative of the diversity of American society today. LGBTQ women of colour are thus in a unique position to tear down the socially constructed and inherently inhibiting walls of racial identity, sexism and heterosexuality in America today. By navigating the artificial binaries of race and sex, women of colour are navigating and exploring new ideological terrain in an attempt to reconfigure our ideas about race, sex and sexuality (see Fredrickson 2002; hooks 33-47). references Baker, L C. (1996). Differences in Earnings between Male and Female Physicians. New England Journal of Medicine. 334.15: 960-964. Butler, J. (2002). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Carmichael, S. L. and S. I. (1998). “Changes in the black-white infant mortality gap from 1983 to 1991 in the United States”, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 15.3: 220-227. Fredrickson, G.M. (2002). Racism: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Goodman, E. (2009). “Trade abstinence pledges for evidence-based science”. Boston Globe, Jan. 3, 2009. hooks, bell. (1981). Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism. Boston: South End Press, 1981. Kogan, M. D. (1997). Social causes of low birth weight. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 88.11: 611–615. Renold, E. (2000). “Coming out". Gender and Education 12.3: 309-326. Rosenbaum, J.E. (2008). Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers. Smith G. W. (1998). "The Ideology of "Fag": The School Experience of Gay Students." The Sociological Quarterly 39.2: 309-335 Stein, R. (2008). “Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds”. Washington Post. Last Accessed June 18 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801588.html  Wellman, D.T. (1993). Portraits of White Racism. Boston: Cambridge University Press. Read More